


Illa Dolet Vere

by Polly_Lynn



Series: TARDIS-Verse [23]
Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, Anniversary, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 18:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5258807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's afraid she'll find him there. She's afraid she won't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Illa Dolet Vere

**Author's Note:**

> A TARDIS-verse story (nothing to do with Doctor Who) for the 5th anniversary of "Kill Shot" (4 x 09). Spoilers for Season 8 up through "The Last Seduction" (8 x 07), but nothing beyond.

 

* * *

 

 

_Illa dolet vere, qui sine teste dolet_

(She grieves truly, who grieves without witnesses)

— Marcus Valerius Martialis

* * *

 

 

 

She's afraid she'll find him there.

She's afraid she won't.

It's like that the whole time she's getting ready. Layering up out of habit, then shedding one, two, three, because it's warm for November. Another thing out of joint, like the Arizona sun's been lingering on their shoulders all this time. Lingering on the two of them.

A whole year. The thought clutches at her heart as she looks out the wide, squat window, the awful hotel curtains framing nothing at all. That's normal, at least. Dark gathering early, and she thinks of him on the creaking porch in firelight. The pop and hiss of a bonfire in the distance and his arms around her, settling her back against his chest. An echo in her ear.

_Tomorrow. Home. We'll go together._

She palms her phone from the bedside nightstand. It's silent. It's _been_ silent. She knows that, but she looks anyway. She turns it over and weathers the crush of disappointment when she looks down at it, sleek, ruthless, uninterrupted black.

* * *

 

He's never brought anything before. He remembers telling her that. The first time, both of them miserable and awkward. Each of them fearful and bristling. Caution like muscle memory making every damned thing _so_ much harder than it needed to be.

He remembers that as he fills the flask. Tucks it away in his jacket pocket, because he's already dressed. Set to go, and he has been for a while now, but he's stalling. Turning back from the door again and again, because he's eager to go. Eager not to go, and terrified what it means if he doesn't. If they break with ritual. If they break.

He doesn't know what the flask has to do with it. He doesn't know what kind of world he's walking out into. Without her. With her. Without her again, and it's left him raw. Out of place in the world, but he can't stand here forever. He shoves the flask deep into his pocket and wrenches open the door.

He's going. He _is_ , though he comes to a halt one last time. He goes still in the act of another ritual. The mundane check for needful things. Keys. Wallet. Phone. He stops with his hand over the rigid oblong of it right over his heart. He stops, then falls forward into motion. Action. He reaches inside his jacket. He lets the phone fall from his hand, stiffens as it clatters on the hall table and leaves it there. He goes.

* * *

 

There's nothing when she gets there. When she slips under the slack loop of chain. When some new bubble of rust on the wrought-iron gate scores the thin skin over her shoulder blade even through her clothes. When she passes the absolutely lightless, uninviting rise of the security station, she knows there's nothing. That she's alone.

She keeps on. Lifts her feet and pushes the sick weight of disappointment as far from her as she can. She's here for Roy, she tells herself. Her captain, and there's a different kind of weight to that as she picks her way through the knee-high maze of headstones. A different kind of burden that brings a pained smile to her lips when she thinks about that morning. Half-pleasant butterflies and not-so-pleasant certainty that she would never—could never—measure up.

And then there he was, like a vision. Like always with light and love and _belief_ in her. She thinks about the bracelet. Another pang. For the beauty of the thing itself. For the thrill of his strong hands fixing the clasp, an urgent spark leaping between them at his sudden tug on the metal circlet. Playful and not playful. Another pang for what feels like the last simple moment in her life. The last moment of joy.

It's not until she arrives that she realizes she's empty handed. She stoops to finger a spray of lavender, still-thriving in the mild fall. It's fragrant and vital beneath her fingers. A far cry from the cluster of knots struggling just above the soil line in a tiny stone pot. It's a thriving thing of beauty that makes her feel like she has no place here. No place at all.

She recoils. Stands too quickly. Stumbles right into him.

* * *

 

She's there. He knows long before there's anything like line of sight to the grave. Long before he left the loft, though he only understands that now. Certainty buried deep beneath everything that still had him leaving and not leaving. Giving in and not giving in to the pull of this.

He knows she's there, and still the sight of her steals his breath away. The strength and grace of her figure, a dark shape cut from the November night. Even with anger crowding at the edges. Frustration and hurt and hopelessness. Even though he's still raw from everything. Having her and not having her in rapid succession. New rules in a long-played game that began right here, Even with all that, the sight of her steals his breath away.

He thinks of going. His hand falls to his hip. To the flask and the nearest lonely place he find. He thinks it might be for the best. To go and carry with him a pure moment like this. Love and longing and nothing to taint it, but she folds in on herself then. Makes herself small and half disappears and it draws him closer. Clumsy, terrified steps as he thinks of her bending over him in the warehouse. Kissing him. Telling him she loves him. Leaving him.

He drifts closer. Step after step with nothing in mind until he stops again, fascinated as clouds scud on and moonlight sifts suddenly through a leafless tangle of branches to illuminate her face. To illuminate _her_ in all her sorrow and strength and stubborn bravery. In all her solitude, and he's glad he stayed. Glad to have _this_ moment carry with all the complexity of loving her. Being loved by her.

He's glad to have stayed and sure he should go. And he _is_ going. Stealing one last look and going when she falls into his arms.

* * *

 

"Castle! I didn't hear . . . "

". . . I was just . . ."

They stammer over one another's words, then fall silent. Abruptly, painfully silent, as he takes her by the shoulders and sets her on her feet again. Arm's length, and it's dismal.

"I was going," he says, and he seems to be. He angles his shoulders from her, making good on it.

Her resolve crumbles."Can you not?" Her pride and whatever it is that's kept her upright all these weeks. "Can you stay, Castle?"

He shakes his head, silent in his misery. Out of practice at saying no to her, and the truth of that cuts deep.

"I don't think . . ." He doesn't quite turn back to her. Not quite. "I don't know why I came." He shakes his head again. Vigorous this time. Angry. "I can't do another anniversary, Kate."

"You're sorry." It's accusing. Childish and awful the way fury rushes in to flood the wound. To drown the agony. "You're _sorry!"_

He does turn back then. Closes the distance and takes her by the arms, his fingers biting into skin through the light fabric of her jacket. "I'm _not_ sorry." It's a deadly soft whisper, right in her face. Deadly serious. "If you left me for years and years and I could . . ." His jaw works hard. His throat rises and falls. Hurt like a living thing under the anger. "If you left me and I could have you back for . . . for even a minute, I wouldn't be sorry."

He lets her go. Blinks past the apology she knows he wants to make. Past the sick feeling that rises in him as she winces at the blood rushing back in. Pain and pins and needles.

"I'm not sorry, but it hurts." That's louder. Flat and almost conversational. Infinitely worse for it. Infinitely. "It hurts so much more today and yesterday and the day before and the . . ." He clenches his fists at his sides. "I'm scared."

_Scared._ The word shocks her. Leaves her taking a staggering step closer, but he holds out his hands. More a plea than anything, but she stills, her arms dropping like a rag doll's to her sides.

"Before you . . ." He huffs out a breath, unhappy with himself. With everything. "Before we had our . . ."

He looks up at her. Sees the words on her lips, just as she sees them on his, but he can't say it. Neither of them can say it.

"I was getting used to it." His right hand rises, his fingers clawing absently at the left side of his chest, then splaying out. Something passes over his face, quick as the moon hides behind the clouds again and the words come quickly. "Like a scar. And now it _hurts_ all over again and still . . . . I don't want a scar where you should be."

His palm hits his ribs hard enough that she hears it. Dulled by cloth and the too-warm November night.

"I don't . . ." She feels a sharp pain in her own chest. Her own skin. Her fingernails digging in, testing the still-nerveless expanse just shy of her heart. "I don't want to be a scar."

The world goes silent again. Abruptly. Painfully. He nods. Accepting the words as all she has to give.

"I'm sorry, you know." The words are calm again. Measured. "I'm sorry for every secret. That night . . ." He gestures to the ground. To the hairline scar that winds its way from her wrist to disappear beneath the sleeve. "I wish I'd told you everything. That I loved you and I'd been lying to you all along."

"Castle . . ." Tears streak down her cheeks, sudden and unstoppable, but he goes on.

"I wish I'd told you that I knew you remembered and asked you to go to Paris with me." He swipes desperately at his own eyes, even though they're dry. "I wish I'd told you everything about Hunt or Cross or whoever he is, right from the start, and I wish I understood how _anything_ could make me leave you like I did, and I'm _so . . ._ "

He breaks off again. Another flicker of something across his face as he squares his shoulders to her.

"I looked at your phone. The other night during our . . ." He grinds his teeth. "I saw the message from Vikram."

Fear lances through her. Fury at herself and something ancient. Something more than half dead. Adolescent indignation that she swats away. "Castle." She swallows hard, trying to pull the pieces of herself together. Trying to be what she needs to be. "You need to forget . . ."

"So it _was_ Vikram." There's no triumph in it. No _gotcha,_ but his mind is busy. "McCord. The others. It didn't end with Allison Hyde."

"Castle, you can't . . ." Her voice rises, desperate. "I can't have you with me on this."

That pulls him up short. Stops the wheels turning and stills him completely. Body and mind and heart. They all come to a halt.

"Can't," he echoes dully, then shakes his head. Reverses field and looks her in the eye, resigned. "Won't. That's the thing about secrets, Kate. Mine _and_ yours. It's always won't."

He's going, then. Really going, and it feels like the world is giving way beneath her. She stares down at the ground, seeking the certainty of that at least. Of Roy Montgomery's tombstone.

_We speak for the dead_.

She hears his voice for the thousandth time as her eyes come to rest on something half hidden behind the riot of lavender. A photo in careful plastic. Evelyn and Mary, Rebecca in the middle in cap and gown. The three of them are smiling. Truly smiling, though there's wistfulness around Evelyn's eyes. Pain, and there always will be for all the joys he'll miss. Her husband. Their father. And still, they speak for him.

_They_ speak, and she hears his voice again. Anew.

_Once the wicked rob them of their voices. We owe them that. But we don't owe them our lives._

She hears her own voice ringing off unfamiliar walls.

_I'm sure as hell not going to let someone chase me away from the life I've worked so hard to create._

She hears her own voice here and now, cutting through the darkness. Shattering the unending peace of the dead. She hears herself calling for him.

"Castle!"

She fumbles her phone from her pocket. Instinct out of place here and now. She drops it. Leaves it behind as she races after him. Stumbles again and again, but keeps her eyes on the lines of him, cut out of blackness.

"Rick!"

He stops. Turns and she's on him sooner than either of them could have realized. She's wrapping herself around him and swallowing hard against the hurt as his arms hang limp at his sides.

"I need you." She presses her forehead to his heart, the wild thump of it giving her courage, though he's rigid with hurt and anger and everything. "I need to tell you everything."

He's silent. Unyielding still as he offers nothing but a single word. "Everything," he says. Stony. Uncompromising.

"Everything." She loses her breath when his arms band around her. But she says it again, somehow, his breath becoming hers in whispered relief and vow and resolution. "Everything from now on."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: For a host of reasons, I wasn't going to write this. But here we are.


End file.
